


Mind Game

by KalikaBarlow



Category: Saw (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Love/Hate, Romance, Rough Sex, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:16:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2267697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KalikaBarlow/pseuds/KalikaBarlow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They played with each other's minds. The heart was never supposed to be involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mind Game

It was a mind game. More of a mind-fuck than anything else.

Taunting, teasing, she was always two steps ahead of him. Insolent, arrogant, he always managed to get her guard down and surprise her.  
They were rough, spontaneous. Their passion, for lack of a better word, knew no boundaries. He wanted her more every time he had her. The enigma of her character seemed so much clearer when her clothes were at the end of his bed, or scattered around the room as the case often was.  
  
There was no love between them. Barely any affection, either. Their connection was brutal, animalistic.  
  
Biting, scratching, mindless fucking whenever the mood happened to strike them. Keeping their hands off each other was becoming more and more difficult as time went on. A slight brush of skin was enough to send them lunging at each other, mouths smashed together as tongues fought for dominance. A constant battle between them. An endless struggle that never failed to satisfy.

***  
  


She was a screamer. Her tendency to vocalize made their encounters all the more exciting and served to remind them of the risks involved. Perhaps screwing her on the hood of his car had been a bad idea, especially since they were in the police parking lot. 

But they thrived on the danger; the thrill of being caught made the sex all the more intense and left them both starving for more. Hoffman never failed to have her howling his name by the end of it, no matter how little time they spent wrapped up in each other. He knew which buttons to push and how to push them to get the reaction he wanted. He liked to think he knew her body better than she did and often, he was certain that he did.  
  
Having her moaning and screaming beneath him was Hoffman’s definition of the end of a good day.  
  


***

He hated her. And he was sure than she hated him too, but it never seemed to stop them. In a way, the sex was their way of taking out their frustrations on each other, which was why Amanda often found herself numb from the waist down after a couple of particularly violent rounds and why his back was bleeding from long, deep scratches. 

They bit, scratched and bruised each other to the point where taking aspirin after sex had become more than a regular occurrence. He marked her as his, his teeth imprinted into her soft, pale flesh. He despised her, but it didn’t stop him from possessing her. The moment she had yielded to him the first time, he had claimed ownership and Amanda Young became the property of Detective Mark Hoffman. She didn’t realize it and she likely never would, but she belonged to him, body, mind and soul.

  
***  
 

He loved her. And he knew she loved him too. It was a complex relationship, fueled by their lust and mutual dependency. He needed her just as much as she needed him, if not more so. It drove him insane. _She_ drove him insane. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. He’d take her however he chose, lusty and wanton with her panties still hanging off one ankle or quiet and miserable, knife blade pressed against her inner thigh. He’d licked the knife clean, and then the wounds. Her blood tasted sweet and spicy, the distinct coppery tang hitting him full force. He’d consumed her in every sense of the word.

 _“Don’t stop,”_ she hissed. _“Don’t you ever stop.”_

He’d raised his head, his lips stained red with her blood.  
  
 _“Never. _”__

He would never stop. There was no force in this universe that could stop him from hating her. There was nothing any God could do to stop him from loving her. His heart knew everything and nothing about how he felt about her. It was too hard to understand.

***   
  


She liked to ask him questions sometimes, before he fucked her. Taunting him, she would shed her clothing as he answered her, a slow strip show that set his loins on fire.

“What is your darkest fantasy?” she asked him, pulling her shirt over her head and hanging it neatly over the chair in his bedroom, turning around and eyeing him from under long, dark lashes.  
  
He stood rigid against the wall, his lips curved into a wry smile.

“You are my fantasy,” he murmured in return, undoing his tie and dropping it onto his desk.  
  
Amanda chuckled, reaching up to take her hair down from its ponytail, the dark brown waves cascading down her back and settling just below her shoulder blades.

“Liar.”

He liked it when she let her hair down, he liked curling it around his hand, forcing her head back and biting into her clavicle.

“Why would I lie to you?” he asked, shedding his police issue jacket and dropping it casually to the floor.  
  
Making a soft noise of pleasure, Amanda reached down, undoing her belt and allowing her pants to drop, the black material pooling around her ankles.

“Because you just want to fuck me,” she replied almost casually. Her underwear was mismatched, her lower body clad in black panties and her breasts encased in a scarlet-coloured bra.

Black and red. They were her colours and he liked them on her.

“And me fucking you has something to do with me lying to you?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow as he shed his shirt, crossing the room until he stood toe-to-toe with her. He towered over her easily.

She met his gaze evenly. 

“If you lie to me, you get nothing.”

“Do you really think you get to make that choice?”

“You saying you’d rape me?”

“You think it’d be rape, Amanda?”  
  
The honest answer was ‘no’, he knew that much. She blinked, her dark eyes fixed on his before she lowered her gaze, hooked her fingers into the waistband of his slacks and pulled him backward toward the bed.

*** 

He liked watching Amanda sleep sometimes, on the nights when she wasn’t plagued by nightmares or unable to pass out altogether. Her face lacked any kind of expression, perfectly smooth and serene, like a statue and her lips were often swollen and bruised.

But when she was like that, it was like the Amanda he knew during the waking hours ceased to exist. She looked younger, as though the weight of the world had not yet crushed her spirit to dust. If he looked closely, he could still see her scars on either side of her mouth, too light to be seen from a distance. The Reverse Bear Trap. Even now she treated the device with an amount of disdain that he understood quite well. He hadn’t been able to even glance into a mirror after his ‘test.’ He’d smashed every single one in his apartment from sheer terror. He had nightmares of John stepping through them and shooting him in the head with that shotgun for weeks afterward.  
  
They’d subsided. Eventually.

“Stop staring at me,” she mumbled grumpily, opening her eyes a crack to glare at him. “It’s hard to sleep with your eyes burning into my face, idiot.”

A smirk curved his lips.

“I can’t sleep, so sorry if I'm trying to look for something to do.”

“And staring at me is something to do?” she cocked an eyebrow at him. Hoffman chuckled, reaching over to brush her fringe out of her eyes.

“You’re impossible,” he drawled, trailing his fingers down her face.

“And you’re unbelievable,” she shot back, rolling over. “Now, fuck off and let me sleep, would you?”  
  
Shaking his head, Hoffman reached over and draped an arm around her waist.

“Bitch,” he growled into her ear

“Fucker,” she murmured in return as she drifted off once again.

 

***

He didn’t know why he kissed her. Normally, kissing was just a prelude to sex and was as violent as the subsequent act.

It hadn’t been then. He had caught her in the shower, naked aside from her panties and soaking wet, her knife pressed into her thigh, blood streaming down her leg in scarlet rivulets, washed down the drain by the lukewarm droplets. She hadn’t looked up, even though he knew she knew he was there.  
  
He considering undressing for a moment, before deciding against it and stepped into the shower cubicle, moving to sit down with her.

“Give me the knife,” he said.  
  
She hadn’t looked at him, but she obeyed, dropping the weapon into his hand. He was glad that this time he didn’t have to wrestle it from her.

“How many times?” he asked quietly, placing the knife out of reach. “How many more times are you going to do this to yourself?”

“I don’t know.”  
  
Her response didn’t surprise him, nor did the fact that she was crying.

“He’s getting worse, Mark,” she said tearfully. She only ever used his first name when she was like this. “He’s dying.”  
  
John.  
  
Her mentor was the one that always caused her so much pain, even if it was a pain she made herself feel.

“He’s been dying for a long time, Amanda,” he replied. “He’s not getting better.”  
  
She slapped him.

He kissed her.

She didn’t fight him, not this time. She clung to him, gripping him as tightly as she could. He let her, one hand tangled in her hair.

Hoffman didn’t know how long they stayed like that, but by the time they broke apart, the water was cold and his clothes were saturated.

  
***  
  
 

“Why did you say it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why would you lie to me like that?”

“It wasn’t a lie.”  
  
She looked so vulnerable. Pale, shaking, her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted. For a moment, he regretted saying anything. Maybe she wasn’t ready to hear what he was still coming to terms with himself. But he’d said it now, and there was no taking it back.  
  
Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. “We had a good thing going,” she said. “Why do you have to fuckin’ ruin a good thing, Hoffman?”

“I haven’t ruined anything and you know it.”

She glared at him, her eyes filling up with tears. She’s hurting, despite how happy this would make anyone else; it cut Amanda to the bone. He can tell. He had felt the same way.

“I thought this was enough,” she said. “What more can there be for us but _this?_ ”

“I don’t know. This is an emotion, not a prophecy. I have no idea how this will change things.”

“Of course, it’s gonna fucking change things!” she shouted, anger colouring her cheeks. “You have no fucking idea what this will do!”

“No, I don’t.” Hoffman was amazed by how calm he sounded. “And I don’t care either.”

Amanda was silent for a long moment, searching for something to say. Was she going to shout at him? Tell him to get out?

“Why?” she finally said, tears streaming down her face. “Why do you love me?”  
  
Hoffman shook his head. “I don’t know why. I just…know that I do. Despite everything.”  
  
Defiance.

“Tell me you hate me.”

“I hate you.”  
  
She took a step toward him, angling her face upward.

“Tell me you love me.”  
  
He doesn’t break her tear-filled gaze.

“I love you.”

“Will you ever leave me?”

“Never.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Hit me.”  
  
He slapped her across the face with no hesitation, his hand leaving a red mark on her cheek.

“Kiss me.”  
  
Mark seized Amanda and kissed her, his hands clenched over her upper arms.  
  
If he had his way, he’d never let her go.


End file.
